Where can you find most craftsmen today? Sure, yes – in the business directory! According to statistics, only 5% of potential customers look for a tradesman in the business directory. In contrast, 32% of customers look for a tradesman online - but usually with only moderate success. Many tradesmen are not on the Internet, do not have a website or, if they do, then only an inadequate one, or are listed in portals that are at the bottom of the rankings of the common search engines.
Most tradesmen still go the “old school” route and place four-figure advertisements in newspapers and yellow pages every year. The reach of such advertising measures is difficult to determine and the sales they bring in are certainly not.
On a website, however, such analyzes are possible at any time, primarily determining the reach, target pages and bounce rates.
Many craftsmen also try it on their own and use the many website builders available to put together something that only remotely resembles a usable homepage. But honestly, as a roofer, would you put bricks, tarpaulin and battens in front of your customer's front door and advise them to cover their own roof, even if they've never done it before in their life? Certainly not. But this is exactly where many craftsmen lend a hand themselves - the website construction kits - or ask acquaintances, relatives or friends to quickly "put together" something. The result is obvious: the page is not found or is found only with difficulty, email addresses such as: B. dachdeckermeisterxy@gmx.de are not uncommon, images that are too large and take a long time to load, incorrect formatting of texts and images and user-unfriendly navigation. The result is a high bounce rate, meaning potential customers quickly disappear from the site and continue searching.
Unfortunately, many tradesmen fall for the many fairy tales of telemarketers and yellow pages representatives. The clever salespeople are trained in aggressive selling in order to convince unsuspecting customers how important an advertisement in the classic business directory is and how easily they will be found if an entry is also made in the provider's search engine-friendly online portal. Most of these salespeople have never heard of search engine optimization and they usually don't understand many of the other terms they throw around. Here, precise questions help to quickly push the aggressive seller to his limits and convince him.
Experience shows us that such portals are only targeted by a few visitors and the chance of being found through them is largely very low. In most cases, the promised top ranking in Google does not materialize because a single link in these portals is irrelevant to the search engines.
Do it better than others and get online with a professional website before your competition does. To do this, hire an experienced web designer who will design your website optimally and take care of all relevant things: hosting, domain, email address, search engine optimization, etc.
Since, according to statistics, only around 45% of all craft businesses have their own website, the market is not yet really competitive and you still have the chance to be in a niche. This has the advantage that you can reach number 1 in Google faster than your competitors, mainly regionally. In the medium and long term, this will bring you a lot of new customers and increasing sales through the greater reach of your marketing.
This gives you a huge advantage over your competition, which is not yet represented on the Internet, because 97% of Germans with an Internet connection use the Internet to search and no longer use the analog business directory.
Now the only question that remains is how much a website like this actually costs. The website should be as professional and reputable as your own company. Highlight your services and unique selling points. As individual and serious as your company is, your website must be just as individual and serious. This means that your website must also be individually calculated based on your wishes and requirements.
Many factors come together here:
- Which host should it be and what should the internet address be?
- Do you want to maintain the site yourself or hire the web designer to do it for you?
- Do you already have texts and images or do they still need to be purchased or created?
- How many pages and subpages should be created?
- Should the website be responsive, i.e. optimized for mobile devices?
- Do you also need a Facebook presence?
- How extensive should online marketing be (search engine optimization, AdWords campaign, Facebook campaign)?
With all of these questions it becomes clear that a layperson is overwhelmed here, and you can imagine how many hours add up and you can't even casually create a website in a free minute. This includes professional planning, a good concept and knowledge of the latest technologies and how most search engines, especially Google, “tick”.
It also becomes clear that a general statement about the costs is simply not possible without knowledge of the requirements. So have a web designer or agency create an individual offer for you and be sure to think about what you need and what you want in advance. We have already mentioned the most important points above. This is the only way you can present yourself and your company in a serious and attractive manner and successfully acquire new customers online and inform existing customers about new offers quickly and easily.
We offer you tailor-made solutions for your company and also take care of all relevant areas such as search engine optimization and online marketing campaigns. Contact us for your personal and individual offer.
A little tip at the end:
A short video portrait on the homepage of your homepage can have a positive impact on Google searches! The ranking of multimedia pages is around 15% better. We would be happy to make you a reasonable offer for this so that you can optimally represent your company in a video.
